by Joseph Malek

Created on: April 08, 2008

With the approach of the Spring Season it is now time to put your gardening tools and equipment in the best of condition. That includes your lawn mower, hedge trimmer, lawn spreader, power edger, garden hand tools and any other tools and equipment that you use, in order to properly maintain your yard and everything that is growing on it.

That means that your hand tools should be cleaned, sharpened, oiled or whatever it takes to insure that they will function properly. You should also buy a new pair of gardening gloves if your old pair isn't up to the task to protect your hands as you work in your garden. Blusters, cuts and other minor injuries to your hands can be very painful and an infection could actually put you in the hospital if you aren't careful.

Before you use your lawn mower or tractor you should sharpen and balance the cutting blades. In fact, the entire machine should be cleaned. Next, you should check the spark plug or plugs, to insure that the spark gap complies with the specs in you owners manual. So too, it is more than likely that the oil must be changed.

You should also inspect the air filter and then clean or replace that air filter if necessary. In other words, if your lawn mowing equipment is in the best possible condition, you will save gasoline and it will be less likely that your machine will break down at a time when you most need it.

The same is true for your gasoline or electric hedge trimmer and edger. Its cutting blades should be clean and sharp. Yes, you might also be required to oil those cutting surfaces before each use. That reduces unnecessary friction and less effort is required to do the job that the machine was designed to do for you. Again, read the owners manual before you do any maintenance to such equipment.

Further, the electric power cords that you use to provide power for your electric powered gardening tools should not have any exposed wires that could short out your expensive equipment. So too, such exposed wiring could kill you or start a fire.

If you have a lawn spreader, here again you should service the machine in accordance with your owner's manual. If it fails to function properly you might accidentally destroy your lawn.

It is true that an ounce of prevention does save you tons of heartaches, and that might even save your life. It should go without saying that you should obey the safety instructions for all of your power tools and you should only operate that equipment for doing the jobs that each of those machines were designed to perform.

Machines don't last forever. It is far better to replace each and every gardening machine when it no longer provides trouble free service to you. A major malfunction of such old or improperly maintained machinery could seriously injure or even kill you.

Learn more about this author, Joseph Malek.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.